Senate hopeful rocks GOP boat

Now every day is Ammo Day in Nevada.

That is, if state Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, sticks around long enough for people to learn the correct pronunciation of his name.

Amodei is a funny guy with a voting record that resembles rapids on the Carson River -- wild enough to be interesting but nothing that's going to rock the boat too much.

Last week he announced he wants to win the U.S. Senate seat held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

If the jovial Amodei is going to prove his challenge to Sen. Harry "The $25 Million Man" Reid is no joke, he's going to have to survive the turbulent Republican primary without getting swamped by attacks on his voting record that includes support for some taxes.

That's right. Amodei is a Republican. He voted in favor of some taxes. He's been re-elected. In Nevada.

Specifically, Amodei was one half of the Care-Amodei bill of 2003, which would have raised an estimated $900 million over two years with a service tax, sin tax and some other taxes.

It was an alternative to a proposed gross receipts tax.

Amodei said he's proud of the measure because it was time for legislators to "put up or shut up," and he believes it is "an act of cowardice" for lawmakers to reject taxes but approve spending.

"People are either going to buy it or not," Amodei said of his approach to the Republican primary.

He'll face a field of a half dozen or more opponents, many wielding hard-core anti-tax rhetoric like a cudgel.

So what's his sales pitch?

"Here's the bottom line," he says. "I think I have the best toolbox to beat Harry Reid."

One prominent Republican insider who supports another Senate hopeful privately said this of Amodei's pitch: "He's right."

Amodei has been in office since 1997 and comes off as a candidate who is comfortable in his own skin, which would come in handy in what would be an undoubtably tense matchup with Reid, who can appear awkward in some public settings.

It's not like Amodei is anti-capitalism. He said this about taxes on business: "You want business to pay as much as they can and still be happy to be here. If they get unhappy being here, they go elsewhere or stop."

But Amodei's quest to get through the primary and face Reid is akin to paddling upstream. He is not widely known in Southern Nevada, he has no money and no organization and voted to raise taxes.

University of Nevada, Reno professor Eric Herzik says Amodei's candidacy is a gut check for the state GOP on whether they might back a moderate on taxes.

"Reid is vulnerable, but not if you throw up an extremist against him," Herzik says. "Candidates with extreme and uncompromising positions ultimately have problems as the electorate expands."

ONE TWEET WONDER?

After getting off to a saucy start on Twitter, Nevada first lady Dawn Gibbons has gone silent.

Gibbons, who separated from her husband, Gov. Jim Gibbons, but still lives on the grounds of the Governor's Mansion and carries out duties of the first lady despite messy divorce proceedings under way, has just one Tweet to her name.

(A Tweet is an entry on Twitter, an Internet-based service that allows folks to send updates about their thoughts and actions to people who follow them.)

The account for "FirstLadyDawn" has just one entry dated June 17 that says, "The ladies and I will be going to the Reno Rodeo this coming weekend. So much fun. Cowboy up!"

The bio describes Gibbons as "newly separated First Lady of Nevada here for your entertainment, laughs and tears."

ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW

Finally, longtime Southern Nevadan and Review-Journal subscriber Anita Kramer, 78, didn't cotton to a story that documented the responses of Nevada's congressional representatives to the recent nationally televised health care speech by President Barack Obama.

The headline was, "Nevadans offer positive responses to Obama's speech."

Kramer called to say the newspaper should have talked to more "normal people" than the officials in Congress to get the real story.

She wanted the Review-Journal to include thoughts from local senior citizens, a legitimate request.

So here's some of what Kramer had to say about Obama's speech.

"I'm a Nevadan, and I don't have a positive response," she said. "We don't know how much he is going to take away from seniors because he didn't tell them. So I disapprove."

Kramer said she wants Medicare to remain as it is and thinks that Obama and Congress should focus new programs on people in their 50s and early 60s who for the most part don't qualify for Medicare but can have a hard time getting insurance in the private sector.

"They are the ones who need the health care plan," she said.

Kramer said the price of the Review-Journal is getting too high, but Political Notebook had to defer to higher authorities for that problem.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.